Deepwater Horizon.... the largest environmental disaster in US history.

The movie Deepwater Horizon dropped in September of 2016 and I watched it for the first time in January of 2017.

I wanted to watch it, because it's a true story (a legit true story, not one of those "based on a true story" that didn't really happen) and I remember when the "Deepwater Horizon Explosion" actually happened back in 2010. I remember watching the news coverage on the "largest accidental oil spill in the world" and the "largest environmental disaster in US history."

The coverage was expansive and the ongoing battles that followed were insane. But there's one thing that they seemed to have forgotten along the way.... while this was such an environmental disaster on such a massive scale, they somehow forgot along the way that people lost their lives. When the Deepwater Horizon explosion took place it not only left this massive environmental disaster, but it also left 11 men without their lives, 17 others injured, and countless lives forever altered.

You see, along the way, they made it strictly about money. I'm not an idiot, I understand that the entire thing cost MASSIVE amounts of money to deal with (the costs are upwards of somewhere around $54 billion dollars) and the loss of it for others was extreme, but that's not really what it all should have been about. There were people out there on that rig. Real, good, hard-working people just out there trying to support their families and make it.

And the film Deepwater Horizon shows you that. It not only tells the story of the disaster and things that could have possibly prevented it along the way (a very important story within itself), but it also told the story about the people. The people who were affected to their very cores.

As well it should.

I watched Deepwater Horizon for the second time. And while I knew what was coming, I was still in no way prepared for it. It had as much of an emotional impact on me the second time around as it did the first, if not more. The performances of Kurt Russell, Mark Wahlberg, Dylan O'Brien, Gina Rodriguez, and John Malkovich cut you to the core and it really shakes you into the realization that yes this happened and yes, it may have been almost eight years ago, but the effects are still as large and looming as ever.

In loving memory of: Jason C. Anderson (age 35), Aaron Dale Burkeen (age 37), Donald Clark (age 49), Stephen Ray Curtis (age 39), Gordon L. Jones (age 28), Roy Wyatt Kemp (age 27), Karl D. Kleppinger Jr. (age 38), Keith Blair Manuel (age 56), Dewey A. Revette (age 48), Shane M. Roshto (age 22), and Adam Weise (age 24).